The Joan and Penrith Regional Gallery present Blak Douglas vs The Commonwealth
A NAIDOC Week 2025 Feature Film Screening + Q&A with Blak Douglas.
As part of NAIDOC Week 2025 celebrations, The Joan and Penrith Regional Gallery proudly present a special screening of Blak Douglas vs The Commonwealth at the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre on Tuesday 8 July. This compelling film will be followed by an in-depth Q&A with acclaimed artist and activist Blak Douglas.
Blak Douglas tells his story, his way, in a gripping testament to the transformative power of art to address the injustices of the past. A powerful, brutally honest and disarming film about one of the most vital voices in Australian art.
Before winning the coveted Archibald Prize in 2022, Dhungatti artist Blak Douglas created his most emotionally charged work, a portrait of his Indigenous grandmother, revealed at the National Gallery of Australia’s Indigenous Art Triennial: Defying Empire.
In his Redfern studio, Blak Douglas shares his experience growing up having to prove his
Aboriginality to forge his identity, attempting to reconcile with the intergenerational trauma he witnessed directly in his father and which he personally confronts. Searching through old family photographs, a painful truth is revealed. His grandmother, as a child, was torn from her family and forced into servitude.
Blak Douglas traces the life of his grandmother back to the haunting rooms of the Cootamundra Girls Home, a lonely property where she was stripped of her name, language, family and culture and moulded into a “domestic”. We witness the emotional gravity of this place and the effect it has on Blak Douglas and his work. At the State Archives, Blak Douglas later unearths the harrowing machinations of a system that deliberately fragmented his family. He reads aloud the fate of his grandmother and her siblings, recorded in the chilling entries of historical registers.
In the present, art and identity converge into potent commentary on Australian culture with a sense of irony and humour, in works that will become iconic – Domestic Violets, The Lucky Country and The Really Bins. The work is transported to the prestigious National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, to debut as part of a glittering celebration to mark the anniversary of the 1967 Referendum alongside Australia’s most important Indigenous artists.
Blak Douglas tells his story, his way, in a gripping testament to the spirit and transformative power of art to address and heal the injustices of the past. His reflections are powerful, brutally honest and disarming, establishing him as one of the most vital and authentic voices in the Australian arts landscape.
NAIDOC WEEK ACTIVITIES
7 July, 10am and 1pm | Shadow Puppet Workshop with Brea McCarthy
Join Brea McCarthy, First Nations Artist Educator, for a special shadow puppets workshop in response to Blak Douglas The Halfway Line exhibition.
Location: Penrith Regional Gallery Bookings required.
8 – 10 July 10am – 2pm | Art Making Activities
Drop in art making activities in response to Blak Douglas The Halfway Line exhibition.
Location: Penrith Regional Gallery
8 July, 7pm | Blak Douglas vs The Commonwealth Film Screening + Q&A with Blak Douglas. Location: Q Theatre, Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre
Friday 11 July, 9am – 2pm | NAIDOC WEEK event with Penrith City Council
Drop-in style art-making activities in response to Blak Douglas The Halfway Line exhibition with Brea McCarthy. Location: Jamison Park, Penrith
These events are proudly funded by the NSW Government through the 2025 NAIDOC Grants Program
